Comments from Israel, covering everything that you can imagine and more!

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Soldier shot dead

In an apparent isolated incident an IDF soldier, Staff Sgt. Major Shlomi Cohen (31) from Afula, was shot dead while driving near the Israeli-Lebanese border at Rosh Hanikra. He was driving alone at night, and was on an official mission. His murderer was apparently a Lebanese Army soldier, who fired 7 shots into the jeep at close range. The IDF returned fire and later, seeing suspicious movements near the border, shot at two persons, who were hit. But, the reports from Lebanon do not indicate whether or not they were wounded or killed. The Lebanese government issued a statement that someone had been arrested for this shooting.

According to reports 44 Israelis have been killed in shooting incidents in the past 2 years, mostly by Palestinians. It is a continuous problem, apparently in most cases there is no organized attack by a specific terrorist organization, but individual Arabs randomly open fire at Israelis, both soldiers and civilians. The IDF announced that it does not wish to escalate the situation and so there will be no large-scale response. But, patrols near the border have been beefed up and the IDF is on the alert. The UN Secty. Gen Ban-ki Moon also denounced the shooting and issued a call to both sides to exercise restraint. Israel announced again that it considers any attack from Lebanon to be the responsibility of the Lebanere Government, and there were contacts between the two Governments.

Such incidents remind Israelis that we are constantly under attack, with enemies in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza. Even when undertaking direct negotiations with the Palestinians, organizations such as the American Studies Association, as reported today, vote to boycott Israeli academics, and what for? Do we treat the Palestinians any worse than the Chinese treat the Tibetans, or the Syrians treat their own people, or the Egyptians treat the Islamists or the Ukrainians or the Thais treat each other. No, of course, not, objectively the Palestinians manage to live quite well thank you, and they are not under "occupation". Yet the objective situation makes no difference to these western liberals, the singling out of Israel for an academic boycott makes them guilty of anti-Semitism. We are being sniped at by Lebanese soldiers, Palestinian extremists and western liberals.